Baghdad… The Dream That Never Ages

Baghdad… The Dream That Never Ages

Baghdad cannot be read; Baghdad must be lived—like the call of a muezzin merging with church hymns, like the breath of Al-Saffar Market when copper hums its melodies against the skin of passersby, like the artisan’s fingers pouring light upon the shanasheel wood, letting the sun slip shyly through the eyelashes of the alleyways. Baghdad is not seen; it is felt—in the first cup of tea on the sidewalks of Karrada, where cafés spread the faces of dreamers like a morning ritual; in the laughter of a child running between Mutanabbi Street’s bookstalls, searching for a book beyond his years; in the sigh of a passerby on the Jumhuriya Bridge, gazing at the Tigris as if writing a letter that has been lost for a thousand years; in the gasp of night wanderers along Abu Nuwas Street, as the moon combs its hair over the water; in the whisper of a flute drifting from an old house in Karkh; and in the hushed murmur of a lover leaving his heartbeat on the banks of Rusafa, afraid it might be lost in the labyrinth of streets.

Baghdad is not a city—Baghdad is a being, wandering the markets draped in a robe embroidered with the scent of cardamom and saffron. Baghdad is a woman perfumed with maqams, swaying proudly between the strings of the oud, raising an eyebrow as the Tigris passes, tilting like a dancer who spills water upon the seagulls, startling them into flight—only for them to return. Baghdad is a man, haunted by poetry, casting his verses into the Tigris, only for the wind to return them centuries later. Baghdad cannot be told; Baghdad happens inside you—it changes you, rearranges your memory, reminds you that time collapses in its alleyways only to rise again, that old tales are not myths but lights shimmering upon the pavements when the rain washes them clean.

Baghdad does not sleep. Baghdad rests in the arms of the evening, then awakens with the dawn call to prayer, lines its eyes with kohl as the first ray of sunlight touches the shanasheel of Jadriya, then moves forward, stumbling over the hurried footsteps of merchants at the gates of Shorja, pausing at the first poem recited in Al-Zahawi Café, then smiling before continuing on—as if still searching for itself within a path that never ends.

O Baghdad, how does the clay remember your steps since Sumer and never tire? How does the water paint your face anew each evening without ever repeating it? How do you remain the sovereign of time without being burdened by it? How does the sound of the maqam rise in your streets, wrap around the minarets, melt into the columns of ancient houses, then scatter with the wind—ascending as a prayer to a sky that never answers? How do the seagulls lose themselves in your embrace, only to return again? How does the water write your name in every wave, erase it, then rewrite it—as if it refuses to forget?

Baghdad… O woman who walks the blade’s edge without bleeding, O song left incomplete since the first string was plucked from history’s oud, O dream that repeats itself as if it never wants to wake, O heart where roads entwine but never stray, O euphoria left upon the Tigris before the sunset swallows it whole, O sorrow, O laughter, O gasp, O silence, O echo of the maqam that still lingers between the walls and clings to memory, O anthem hummed by dawn upon Karkh’s minarets, O poem recited by the waves each evening to Rusafa’s shores, before retreating, whispering to the Tigris as if trying to understand—

How can you be?How do you never die?How can you hold within you all this love, all this ruin, all this pulse, all this wandering, all this light…And still—Be born again, every single time?

~Firas Alwaily

Michigan